


The Inquisitor's Intentions

by SidheLives



Series: Harlequin Eyes [4]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Eavesdropping, F/M, Feelings, Feelings Realization, Porn with Feelings, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:00:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27289048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SidheLives/pseuds/SidheLives
Summary: Everything had changed.At least it had for Solas.What was the Inquisitor playing at?
Relationships: Solas/Female Trevelyan (Dragon Age), Solas/Trevelyan (Dragon Age)
Series: Harlequin Eyes [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980208
Comments: 9
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Rated Explicit for Chapter 2

Everything had changed.

They had been alone in that room together for less than an hour, half at most. Such a brief time, a handful of words, a single slip of carefully composed control, but it had altered everything.

At least it had for Solas.

* * *

* * *

The next morning Solas stepped into the great hall, uncharacteristically famished, and froze when he saw the toss of golden waves as Des sat down. He almost backpedaled into the rotunda, foot lifted to turn, then with a force of will straightened his shoulders and continued into the room. He would not allow himself to be disrupted by her presence. He knew she saw him, as he settled into the edge of a bench, as far from her as he could perch without actively appearing to be avoiding her, but she didn't acknowledge his arrival. Solas did his best to maintain the same aloof disinterest that she displayed, but he could not keep his eyes from wandering to her. As usual, her attire was criminally suggestive, top buttons of her blouse undone to allow an ample view of her décolletage, as well as the rainbow of bruises which made Solas glance away uneasily.

"Ooooh," Sera clamored onto the bench across from the Inquisitor, openly staring down her top. "Who you been making kissy faces with? Thems not from Bull, seen enough to know, so who else got a taste of your noble ass?" The exclamation, made none too quietly, drew several pairs of eyes. Solas did his best to focus on his breakfast, but he kept one eye on Des as she set her fork down with a pointed  _ clink _ .

He waited for her smug response, for her to lord his weakness over him under all the eyes of the room. He considered fleeing before her vicious eyes drew attention to him, but what would that do but make her mockery more complete? He felt anger rise in him, that she would stoop to such depravity to make him a fool and that he had allowed himself to be tricked 

"What, these?" Des let the fingers of one hand drift over her breasts, crimson painted lips curling as Sera's eyes traced after her hand. "They were a gift from my dear friend, the visiting Lord Nunyor."

Sera's nose wrinkled in confusion and she tore her eyes from the woman's chest. "Lord whowhatnow?"

"Nunyor  _ fucking _ business, Sera." The genial smile she wore was undercut by the severity of her tone and Sera put her hands up in a gesture of surrender.

"Whatever. I just want to know when's my turn. Bet she bends like a willow, aye?" she elbowed Blackwall, who sat beside her, in the ribs and he sputtered into his ale.

Dorian leaned over the table toward him. "Don't answer that."

Solas inhaled sharply in surprise, eyes scanning over Des and her cool expression. The Inquisitor spent no more time on Sera's question, resuming her meal as if the exchange had not taken place. She did not even glance at him.

If she had intended to humiliate him the moment had been ripe, the roguish elf could not have set her up better. Solas picked at his food, anger washed away in a torrent of confusion.

What was the Inquisitor playing at?

* * *

* * *

Desdemona, for her part, seemed offensively unaffected by their  _ heated discussion _ . She had returned to paying him no more attention than she had since before he had stumbled upon her and Bull in the Emerald Graves, and her tone with him was equally as friendly and appropriate as it was with Commander Cullen, or Ambassador Montilyet, or anyone else she had no more than a working relationship with. The disregard should have been a blessing, but Solas found himself confounded by the woman. Had it merely been a slip of resolve? An idle curiosity which, now sated, had passed easily from her mind? As days passed, he fixated on the incongruity, like a scab he could not stop picking at.

"It's getting late," Dorian's voice carried over the library balcony to where Solas sat in the rotunda, sketchbook spread before him. "Do you intend to spend yet another lonely night in the library?" There was an implied raise of an eyebrow in his tone.

"Lonely? Don't sell yourself short, Dorian. You're a lovely companion, even if you have a nasty habit of keeping your hands to yourself." Des's voice was pleated with laughter. Solas, pen in his hand forgotten, turned his attention entirely to the conversation above.

"Join me for a bottle at the Herald, then? You must have Bull simply ravenous at this point, spending your evenings with me as of late, and you look absolutely exquisite this evening. I'm sure he'll pounce before I even get the cork out."

A pregnant pause followed this invitation. Solas felt a pang of bitterness that he could not see the Inquisitor's  _ exquisite _ presentation, a thought he shoved away as soon as it emerged.

"Not tonight, I'm afraid," Des responded at length. "I have some documents to go over for Leliana. You know how our Nightingale gets when she's made to wait."

Dorian laughed. "I would think you'd find the murderous intent in her eyes titillating, minx that you are. But if you insist I suppose I shall be forced to consume a bottle in your honor."

Solas frowned, setting his pen aside and tenting his fingers before his mouth.  _ She was lying _ . The pause, the vague excuse, the tentative way it had been offered: Solas had no doubt that there were no documents from the spymaster. But why would she lie? Particularly to Dorian, with whom she was thick as thieves? There was also the matter of her implicit avoidance of Bull… 

Solas dismissed any hasty conclusions based on this information before they had time to formulate. Dorian didn't know everything, it was more likely she was simply meeting with Bull at a time Dorian was unaware of. There was absolutely no reason to delve further into what was clearly none of his business.

* * *

* * *

And yet…

* * *

* * *

Solas seldom went to the Herald's Rest. He preferred solitude to the tumult of the tavern. He had not even intended to go there when he left the rotunda, at least not consciously. An evening stroll, that is what he had told himself, even as his feet carried him there. The building was crowded with soldiers and scouts, drinking and socializing after a hard day's work, but despite this, Solas knew at least one of the room's occupants clocked him the moment he stepped through the door. The Iron Bull was subtle in his observations, but Solas had played the game of subterfuge for long enough to pick up on the attention. He ignored it at first, taking a seat in a corner and nursing a mug of warm cider as he watched the comings and goings. He wasn't sure himself what he was looking for, why he had come, and his mind began to drift, an image of blazing green eyes and red curled lips coming into focus behind his lids even as he struggled against it.

How had the infuriating woman clawed her way so deep into his brain that he could not shake her from his thoughts? Her defiant eyes were the last image in his mind when he went to sleep, hands clamped firmly under his back, and when he woke it was to the phantom sound of her breathy laughter. This insidious infestation of his consciousness was an attack to which he had no prepared defense; he was left bailing out a sinking ship from which there was no land in sight.

Solas didn't even notice The Iron Bull's approach until his hulking presence settled into the seat across from him. He gave the Qunari a veiled look of inquiry, inwardly cursing the Inquisitor again for becoming such an overwhelming distraction.

"Evening, Solas." Bull's tone was casual, but there was a gleam in his eye which indicated his appearance was more than a cordial greeting.

"Hello, Bull. I hope you are having a pleasant evening." Solas responded with practiced disinterest.

"Am indeed." He nodded, gesturing for Cabot to bring another round. "Don't see you here often. What's the occasion?"

Solas shrugged apathetically. "Change of scenery."

"Right." It was clear from Bull's tone and exuberant nod that he didn't buy Solas's excuse for even a moment. Cabot arrived just then with fresh warm mugs for the both of them, Solas's first having cooled to lukewarm as he avoided his problems. He felt Bull's eyes on him, even as he resumed his people-watching, telling the Qunari with his body language that their conversation had concluded.

"I know, Solas."

His eyes snapped up to meet Bull's intent gaze. "You… know?" He only partially succeeded in masking the alarm in his voice.

"I mean, Des didn't tell me she was breaking things off to chase you around, but she didn't need to. I see the way the two of you look at each other." He leaned back in his chair and could not have looked more at ease if he had been trying. "I say good for both of you. Took a while to get you there, but you made it."

Solas struggled to control his expression. The rush of excitement he felt at the confirmation was followed quickly by a wash of irritation, both for his reaction and to Bull's ludicrous assertion about the Inquisitor and himself. If they looked at each other any special way it was because they loathed each other. Nothing more. "I don't rightly know to what you are referring."

Bull wasn't convinced. "I'm  _ referring _ to the finest ass in Thedas, and how you can't keep your eyes off it." Midway through opening his mouth to object, Solas closed it again with a snap. Bull chuckled, getting to his feet. "You tell yourself whatever you want. Just putting in my two coppers."

Solas chewed at his lip as Bull departed. His thoughts swam, bucket abandoned, treading water in an effort to stay afloat as Des's image flooded over him yet again. Abruptly he stood, and his feet carried him out of the tavern with the same obfuscated purpose they had brought him there with.


	2. Chapter 2

The Inquisitor's chamber was dark and quiet when Solas crested the stairs, and for a moment he thought he had miscalculated, that she wasn’t there, then he smelled the musky, acrid smell of Orlesian tobacco drifting in from the open balcony doors. He moved like a shadow to the doorway and his breath caught in his throat as he saw her. She leaned on the balcony, looking over the mountains, wearing a dress shirt that extended just long enough to cover her behind, her long pale legs bare. His eyes were drawn back up to the smoldering tip of her rolled cigarette, held delicately between two fingers of her left hand. Her hair caught the moonlight, looking for all the world like a halo, and for a brief moment, Solas could understand why some believed her to be divine.

“Did you know?”

She looked over her shoulder at him. Her eyes seemed to shine with an inner light, like the Breech they imitated. “Did I know what?” If she was disturbed at all by his sudden presence she hid it well.

Solas clasped his hands behind his back, lifting his chin. “Did you know what would happen when you followed me?” 

Des smirked and took a drag off her cigarette, turning to lean back against the railing. "Are you looking for me to tell you what you want to hear or do you want the truth?"

"What do you suppose I want to hear?" Solas frowned.

"Yes." She tossed her hair back over her shoulder dismissively. "I knew. I planned it all out just to trick you into sleeping with me."

She was right, he realized. The idea that she had schemed to get him alone, egged him into an argument in order to force an emotional response, it was more comforting to his sensibilities than the alternative. He swallowed hard and saw her eyes follow the bob of his adam's apple. "...And what is the truth?"

“No.” She crossed her right arm to tuck into the elbow of her left. “I meant what I said, I just wanted to talk to you.”

"And what happened was…" Solas probed, unsettled by her candid tone.

"An accident." She flicked the last of her cigarette over the balcony's edge to spiral through the air. "Despite what you may think of me Solas, I do not lie awake at night conspiring to bed my companions." She brushed past him into the chamber.

"What  _ do _ you lie awake conspiring?" The question slipped from Solas's lips before he could think to stop it.

She looked back at him, an uncharacteristically humble smile on her face. "Oh you know: destroying the circle of magi, toppling the Chantry, stealing Leliana's tart recipe, the usual." 

Despite himself, Solas chuckled. He hastily wiped the enjoyment from his face, but she had seen it and gave her own short chuckle before continuing to her desk. He watched her retrieve a rolling paper and carefully, with three fingers, pluck a pinch of tobacco out of an ornate tin box before carefully crumpling it onto the waiting paper in her hand. He fixated on her focused attention to the task, the way her fingers quickly and deftly rolled the paper around the tobacco, tightening it just so. As she brought it to her mouth and her tongue slid along the paper's edge his lips fell open slightly, the raw magnetism in the simple gesture stealing his awareness and snatching the air from his lungs. 

This was a woman who could captivate nations and wrap kings around her finger. Putting aside his future plans and the threat she posed them, he could not deny she was the best Inquisitor the organization could have chosen. She was driven, focused, and most importantly she was full of righteous anger. She had witnessed injustice, lived through it, saw those around her fall to it, and she refused to forget or forgive. He acknowledged, for the first time, how similar she was to the man he had been a millennia ago.

_ A mistake _ , she had said. Nothing more. So where was the relief that should have accompanied such an admission? Why still did he feel tension across his shoulders like a yoke? Why wasn't he heading for the door to flee her dominating presence and return to his solitary studies? He watched her place the cigarette between her lips and conjure fire to her fingertip to light it as his mind turned over the question he knew he must ask. "May I ask an impertinent question?"

She tensed, a beat passing before she exhaled a cloud of smoke and responded. “Do you know any other kind?” A wry smile accompanied her words, but it didn’t touch her eyes.

“You're no longer sleeping with The Iron Bull."

Her eyes hardened. "Is that a question?"

"Why?"

"What business is that if yours?"

"I said it was an impertinent question."

Des gave a bitter chuckle. "I suppose you did."

"Are you going to answer it?"

"Why should I? Why do you care?"

"I don't."

"Bullshit.” She snapped, brows pulling low. “You're asking, aren't you?" 

He spread his hands in a calming gesture. "It is simply a question."

Des sighed. "Nothing is simple with you, Solas."

He stalled, attention drifting away from her. Why did he care? He shouldn’t, he knew. What happened between them was a fluke, an error in calculation, not something to dwell on or worry like a sore tooth. As was often the case with fools, however, repeating it did nothing to convince him. “Was it because of what happened?”

“Yes.”

He met her resolute eyes. There was something in them, challenging him to continue the line of inquiry. Solas felt as though he were looking into a deep chasm with no apparent bottom and being given the option to turn back, or to jump.

He jumped. “Tell me why.”

"You're infuriating." Solas wasn't sure if she was answering his question or reacting to his insistence on it. She took a drag from her cigarette, then ground it’s tip into a crystal ashtray, eyes finally rising to his face again. “You question every choice I make, even when you would have made the same one, you undermine me whenever you have a chance, and you constantly talk to me like I’m a child.” She punctuated each point was a step closer to him, and for the first time since he had known her, Solas did not recoil from her approach. "I can't stand you." She stopped within arms reach, eyes searching his face. "And I can’t stop thinking about you.” Her voice was more muted than he had heard it since the destruction of Haven. The usually sure tilt of her candor was gone, replaced by tentative perplexity. 

The pounding of Solas's heart was deafening, and he dared not breathe as she reached out with one hand and caressed his cheek with her soft fingertips. He told himself there was still time to escape, to tell her he agreed that it had been a mistake and resume trading barely concealed hostility at every opportunity. He began to formulate the proper words to push her away, then time seemed to stop as he found himself leaning into her touch.

_ He wanted this _ . The realization blindsided him, despite how obvious it felt in hindsight. She was smart, and strong, and filled with a force of will he had rarely witnessed in what was likely the longest memory in all of Thedas. He thought back to the early months of the Inquisition, back when she had been The Herald, an unquantified variable. How her sharp wit had drawn something out in him, something he had refused to acknowledge as attraction and had choked back as she grew in fame and power. He knew it was foolish, even as he let his eyes fall closed and turned his head to press his lips to her palm, foolish and shortsighted. It was selfish and irresponsible, and he could not summon the resolve to care.

"You are the most dangerous, reprehensible, reckless woman I have ever met." His voice was low and he looked at her through half-lidded eyes. "You are also the most compelling creature ever given breath."

She kissed him, and he felt the last remnants of his resolve crack under the tenderness in the soft press of her lips. He cupped her face in his hands and drank her in, the feel and smell and taste of her wrapping him up, filling him up.

“This is a bad idea,” she breathed, lips brushing his as she spoke.

“A terrible idea.” He agreed, kissing her again.

“We should stop.” She pulled his tunic off over his head, and traced her hands delicately up his bare back, brushing over the still healing scratches her nails had left there.

“It would be the wise thing to do,” his hands rolled down her back to rub firmly over her ass as his mouth found the hollow where her neck met her shoulder and she moaned softly. Solas lifted her against his chest and her legs wound around his waist. She clung to his shoulders, their feverish lips finding each other again as he carried her to the bed and gently set her down.

"I don't want to be wise. Not tonight." She whispered, her clear, hungry eyes boring into him. Solas caught the bottom of her shirt and she raised her arms, helping him to pull the cotton off, leaving her entirely nude. He kissed her again and laid her back, then sat up to gaze down her body, memorizing every supple curve. She was picturesque, skin cast in marble, golden hair framing her noble face, breasts rising and falling with heavy, anticipatory breaths. He took one of her hands in his and laid a kiss on her palm, then leaned over to trail kisses up her arm, across her pale shoulders, down between the rises of her breasts to her navel, and down further to her hip. Solas gently pushed her legs apart to lay his lips against her inner thigh, the featherlight touches pulling slight gasps from her. He rolled his eyes up to look at her face as he let his kisses drift up from her thigh, watched her relaxed smile drop open to a euphoric gasp as he let his tongue slip between her lips to tease at her clit. Her hands wound into the blankets and she mewled, breath coming faster, and he held her thighs still as she squirmed beneath his touch.

Des felt delicate under his hands, soft in a way that was antithetical to the image of her which resided in Solas's mind. She tasted like the Emerald Graves: fresh, clean, and brimming with life. He sucked at her and she cried out, the sound a wordless plea for more, one hand reaching out to caress the back of his head. He allowed her hand to guide his lips back to her face, feeling desperation in the way she clutched at the sides of his neck and the way her tongue danced with his.

“This is very nice,” she breathed, hands rubbing over his shoulders.

“Better than the first time?” He asked, kissing up her neck to nibble at her ear.

“Oh, that was nice too.” She trailed a finger down one of the scratches on his back. “This is just a different kind of nice.” She pushed against his shoulder and he didn’t resist as she guided him onto his back. She ran her tongue along his hip as her hands slid under the waistband of his leggings. She pulled the fabric down and he shivered as the cool air of her room touched his skin, then hissed as her hot breath brushed over his cock. Her hair brushed over him as she finished removing his clothing and tossed it aside, then again as she crawled back up his body to straddle his hips and hungrily press her lips to his again. He could feel the heat of her body above his shaft, tantalizingly close. He pushed his hips up, brushing his tip against her and she sighed against his mouth, slowly easing her hips back to meet his advance. He moaned, hands clutching at her sides, as she lowered herself onto him. Des gasped, arching back, allowing him an incredible view of her stretched out above him.

"Say my name," she told him, voice curled at the edges with pleasure.

"Desdemona," he whispered.

She sighed in satisfaction, biting her bottom lip, and began to move atop him. The slow rise and fall of her hips stoked the fire in Solas, the sweet gasps and moans on her lips amplifying the waves of pleasure that accompanied every downward roll of her body. His hands found her breasts, kneeling their soft flesh between his fingers. She cooed, hands covering his, pressing them harder against her. "Say it again."

"Desdemona." He thrust up as she rolled down and she yelped. He pinched her nipples and she purred.

"Maker, yes. Say it again," she moaned as he thrust up again.

Solas caught the back of her neck with one hand, pulling her down into an impassioned kiss, even as he continued pumping himself up into her. " _ Desdemona _ ." He said it against her lips and she moaned again, body shuddering around him. Her skin seemed to crackle with static electricity and she tried to kiss him again, but he took hold of her hair and held her back. He wanted to hear her come, not have her voice muffled against his lips. "Say  _ my _ name."

"Solas, Solas, Solaaaaa—" the word peeled off into a high pitched cry, her fingernails digging into his shoulders as her body clenched around him. Holding her to him Solas thrust into her harder and faster, stretching her release as he chased his own. His rhythm hitched, breath catching in a moan and he drove into her a final time, hand on her lower back pushing her down to meet him, sinking himself deep into her as he came. She eagerly leaned into him, gasping moans reaching a crescendo as he spent himself in her, then she collapsed onto his chest, the plushness of her breasts equally as pleasant as the warmth of her body still wrapped around his softening cock.

Using two fingers, Solas brushed strands of damp hair away from her face. She seemed to glow, skin kissed with a sheen of sweat, a content smile curling her delicious lips. She opened her eyes, meeting his gaze, and the foggy, effervescent radiance within them threatened to take his breath away. "I lied." She gingerly eased herself off him and curled up to his side.

Solas raised an eyebrow, wrapping his arm around her to tenderly stroke her back. "Oh? What about?"

"This is  _ definitely _ better than the first time." She nuzzled into his neck.

He chuckled. "Better than The Iron Bull?"

"Don't get ahead of yourself, Sweet Talker, you haven't tied me up once." There was an undercurrent of laughter in her words, and he turned his head to look into her mirth dazzled eyes.

"Tie you up?" He shook his head disbelievingly.

"Yes of course, how else do you intend to break my  _ indomitable will _ ?"

Solas laughed, full-throated, honest laughter. "There is more than one way to cross the Narrow Sea, Vhenan." Solas's mind seized as the word left his lips. He had not intended it, the sounds flowing together and springing into existence without conscious thought.

She raised a brow. "Vhenan? What does that mean?"

"Ask me another time and I will tell you," he responded with a breathy chuckle, absently brushing more golden filaments away from her brilliant eyes. 

_ She changed everything _ .

"Sweet Talker?"

She shrugged and nestled deeper into the crook of his shoulder with a yawn. "You'll get used to it."


End file.
